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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

This was a real frustration... To copy "dotfiles" like .bashrc with the "cp -R" command, you'd have to do "cp -R ./.* *", yet it'd try to copy ".." and "." in each directory, which doesn't work right. You could do a -R cp of regular files, then do an ls -a and some basename wizardry to copy "dotfiles" afterwards, but it wouldn't do dot directories (directories that start with dot).

That tar command doesn't look right. The last parameter listed as <dest.> would actually be the list of files to include in the archive.

You can use tar to copy files from one directory to another like this

cd <source dir>; tar cf - . | ( cd <dest dir> ; tar xf - )

I got this from the tar info pages. I'm working off of memory, so please double check it. I don't know if tar called like this will indeed pickup the hidden files/directories in the current directory.

Also double check if 'cp . <destination_dir> does not pick up hidden files. I think that the rational is that since these are hidden files, a user probably is only trying to copy files that they can see in a directory listing. Otherwise a person might be copying files that they are not aware of, which might include harmful files left by a hacker ( make that cracker ). Or perhaps a very large core file.